The following presents examples of recently published reports from Programs I and II of Child and Family Research. Program I: Child and Family Development Across the First Three Decades Command of language is a cornerstone of development and necessary for successful adjustment. One 4-wave 10-year prospective longitudinal study evaluated stability of core language skill in 1780 children in varying categories of biological and social risk. Structural equation modeling supported loadings of diverse measures of child language on single latent variables of core language skill at 15 and 25 months and 5 and 11 years. Core language skill was stable over the first decade of life for children with diverse biological and social risks, including poor health, welfare status, teen motherhood, ethnicity, gender, birth order, and families that changed in income and maternal education over the study period; stability in language was strong even accounting for child nonverbal intelligence and social competence, maternal education and language, and the family home environment. Parenting has strong instrumental connotations and is widely believed to contribute in central ways to the course and outcome of child development and adjustment by regulating the majority of child-environment interactions and helping shape childrens adaptation. It is often assumed that caregiving cognitions engender caregiving practices and, ultimately, childrens development and adjustment. In a large-scale (N = 317) prospective 8-year longitudinal multiage, multidomain, multivariate, multisource study, we tested a conservative 3-term model linking parenting cognitions in toddlerhood to parenting practices in preschool to classroom externalizing behavior in middle childhood. Mothers who were more knowledgeable, satisfied, and attributed successes in their parenting to themselves when their toddlers were 20 months old engaged in increased supportive parenting 2 years later when their children were 4 years old, and 6 years after that their 10-year-olds were rated by teachers as having fewer classroom externalizing behavior problems. This developmental cascade of a standard model of parenting applied equally to families with girls and boys. Conceptualizing socialization in terms of cascades helps to identify points of effective intervention. Many adolescents display risk behaviors that may persist into adulthood and contribute to public health and social financial burdens. Young people may engage in adverse, aggressive, and otherwise reckless behaviors, including driving without a seatbelt, drug and alcohol use, which can threaten their own and others physical health and safety. Given the possible co-occurrence of different risk behaviors, a better understanding of health risk among adolescents requires a more holistic approach where a broader range of risk behaviors is considered simultaneously. We identified four latent profiles based on risk levels of safety & violence, sexual behavior, alcohol use, and marijuana & other drug use in 229 adolescents at 18 years and 23 years. Some adolescents maintained their latent profile membership over time, but more transitioned between risk profiles. Adolescents with more depressive symptoms had a higher probability of developing into the High Risk versus Low and Modest Risk profiles at 23 years. Adolescents in the High, Low, and Modest Risk profiles at 18 years developed more depressive symptoms in young adulthood compared to Medium Risk adolescents. The findings suggest that mental health and behavioral risks are intertwined and targeting one aspect may be effective in treating the other. Program II: Child Development and Parenting in Multicultural Perspective As survival rates following a preterm birth have risen due to improvements in obstetrics and neonatology, preterm birth has emerged as a risk factor for poor development in an increasing proportion of the population. Language skills are impaired in children born very preterm. However, language findings are somewhat less consistent for children born moderate-late preterm. This study investigates whether children born very preterm, moderate-to-late preterm, and term differ in their average level and individual-difference stability in language over time. Samples of 204 very preterm, 276 moderate-late preterm, and 268 term children were given language assessments at 5 and 20 months, 4, 6, and 8 years of age. Very preterm children consistently performed worse than term-born children, and moderate-late preterm children scored in between. Language performance was stable from 5 months through 8 years in all gestation groups, and stability increased between each succeeding testing wave. Pediatricians and parents should be aware that preterm-born children, even those born moderate-late preterm, are at risk for delayed language abilities compared to term children. Children who are performing poorly relative to their peers are likely to continue to perform poorly at later ages; stability in language performance appears to strengthen over time. Last, very preterm children appear to be at the greatest risk for problems with language development. Pediatricians have the opportunity to connect children who have lagging language skills to critical services. Adult appropriate responding to infant signals is vital to healthy child development. We investigated how infant crying, compared to infant laughing or adult crying, captures adults brain resources in a sample of nulliparous women and men, e.g., the effects of different sounds on cerebral activation of the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex of the default mode network (DMN) and reaction times (RTs) while listeners engaged in self-referential decision and syllabic counting tasks, which, respectively, require the activation or deactivation of the DMN. In women, infant crying deactivated the DMN during the self-referential decision task; in men, female adult crying interfered with the DMN during the syllabic counting task. These findings point to different brain processes underlying responsiveness to crying in women and men and show that cerebral activation is modulated by situational contexts in which crying occurs. For decades, the United Nations has recognized that growth and survival of young girls and boys in developing countries are compromised. However, the roles that gender plays in particular growth outcomes and in mortality remains unclear. We assessed differences between girls and boys in growth (standard WHO, 2006, measures of height-for-age and stunting, weight-for-age and underweight, and weight-for-height and wasting) in 139,614 children under age 5, and child mortality of girls and boys collected from 226,798 childbearing women between the ages of 15 and 49 in 34 developing countries, as they relate to the Human Development Index (HDI), a proxy of level of support available for promoting development in poor nations. On average, boys had lower scores on all indicators, especially in low- and medium-HDI countries. The disadvantages in growth and mortality found for boys reflect known biological/genetic differences in susceptibility to environmental conditions. The genetic advantage present for girls tends to be less protective with respect to health conditions that reflect transient circumstances and discretionary behavior. This study sheds light on how socioeconomic conditions relate to gender disparities in growth and survival. Achievement of Millennium Development Goals pertaining to child health and equity require continued efforts to modernize community infrastructure and health services.